


stronger

by dragonfiish



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, babys first post that he wont regret in like 5 months lololol, idk how 2 tag thigns JSDGKLJADGSKLDGASN, virenai has ptsd and then drinks the dayman mothra lightcult koolaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 05:31:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19100683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonfiish/pseuds/dragonfiish
Summary: Virenai accepts a strange being's offer of strength.





	stronger

**Author's Note:**

> hhrhagrhagrhrg finally stopped being a pussy enough 2 put this on here .:} yes im venting my own trauma thru virenai no i dont regret it hennys!

Virenai jolts awake from the stress his dream–or more accurately, his memories coming back–causes him. He doesn't know why he remembers, or how, but he wish he didn't. The Mask Maker did tell him after all, that when taking on a new face, the previous mind would be destroyed.

Unless the mind was of striking will.

It only made sense that his previous self was strong, strong enough perhaps to resist being overwritten by the new identity his mask gave him. Strength was what got him through all those horrible years. Strength helped him survive. Strength was all he had when the world decided to spit upon him. He never imagined that one day, he'd wish that he ~~or who he used to be~~ would be weak enough to fade away. To be forgotten.

He also didn't expect to be holed up in a cave by his sixteenth instar.

The young dragonfly slowly sits up, looking around at the empty cavern he'd taken residence in. The stone ground did him no favors in regards to comfort and the bitter cold seeped through his shell, but it was the only place that sheltered him from the sickness in the air outside. He wouldn't consider home ~~more of a prison, really~~  something he missed a lot, but at least it was heated. Not many bugs fared well in the cold, after all.

He holds his head in his tarsi, his face twisted in agony beneath his mask. The memories are still replaying in his mind, like a mockery of his attempts of starting a new life. "You tried to escape, but you cannot," he hears them jeer. "You are still naught but a broken object," he hears them scorn.

With a sigh, he lies back down on the unforgiving stone. The discomfort from the cold alongside the rocks' texture is enough of a distraction from his rumination. As he shuts his eyes, sleep takes him again.

* * *

 

The dream he enters is different from his original dream. It's... luminous. The light is bright and blazing and beautiful.

Radiant, one might even say.

He looks around curiously, since this dreamscape is one he's not seen yet. It's unfamiliar, yet comforting in a way. The light calls to him like the proper loving home he's never had. He notices a particular beam of light shines more brilliantly to the east, so he follows. The light beckons him, and he obeys. He follows the beam across vast empty plains of pale yellow. There is no one else in his dream ~~so he thinks~~ but he does not feel alone. The light feels more like an emotion than physical illumination in this realm, and it wraps around him ethereally.

Suddenly, a voice.

"Oh, my poor child."

The voice echoes from behind him, grand and magnificent, but loving. It echoes with an almost metallic sound, otherworldly and resplendent. It's not a voice he's heard before, and he's not sure that it could belong to any living bug with such a quality to it. He feels compelled to answer, to recognize the voice's owner. His own voice almost fails him, but he manages to answer, as pathetic as he sounds.

"I... am here," he finally responds. He turns to face the source of the voice and he's nearly driven to tears by the sight.

There stands a massive winged creature, one he's never encountered in his lifetime. The being feels powerful and divine, but the way it spoke to him was almost motherly, in a way. He's overcome by reverence, and bows before the being. He doesn't understand why he does, but he doesn't complain. At this point, the tears do start flowing. He's overwhelmed by feelings of both adoration and desperation. He knows it's foolish to immediately trust a strange being for the sole reason of sympathetic words, but he's been starved of compassion his whole life. He's taking what he can get.

The creature lowers itself to his sobbing form on the ground. It raises his head up to face it with a wing, and does something that sounds like a sigh. With the same wing, it lifts his mask and dries his tears. He can't surmise what the creature feels from its face, but it looks upon him with what he thinks is compassion. He ceases his crying to admire the being undistorted by his tears. It bears a crown, one different from that of Hallownest's monarch, and its eyes blaze like the rest of the light encompassing the area. It must be the source.

"Young one, you've suffered things that no bug should ever have suffered. Even in the realm of sleep, you hide from it in forms dreamed. You wish to be strong, am I correct? You wish to be strong enough to kill the memories, and end the pain."

The tears start up again at the being's words, and his entire body is wracked with sobs as he tries to cough up a reply.

"Yes, I.. I wish.. to be strong. Stronger than I am now. I wish to be strong. I wish to be strong." His words repeat themselves as he surrenders to his impulses and embraces the being. It wraps its wings around him, warm and loving. It doesn't bother making him face it as it speaks again.

"I can make you strong. Follow my light, and together we can end the pain. You will no longer suffer from the world's cruelty. You will be strong." he nods in its embrace before pulling back, wiping his tears away himself. The being rises once again to its initial height, this time, lowering a wing for him to take. He does so and follows as the light around them grows bright enough to blind.

The last thing he remembers feeling is comfort.

* * *

 

Virenai's body in the waking world is contorted, bright orange pustules breaking past his shell, and ichor leaking out of several wounds. His limbs crack as they distort into serrated blades, more for rending flesh and fragmenting carapace than walking. Orange floods his eyes and his mandibles gnash against each other. His wings crumple and tear as ichor is pumped through them, sentencing him to a life on the ground. Divine shrieks escape his broken throat as he succumbs to the Old Light. He stands unsteadily, and a will not his own takes him out of the cave, and into the greater City of Tears ahead.


End file.
